References to Gujarat riots, Cold War dropped

NEW DELHI: The National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) on Thursday dropped references to the 2002 Gujarat riots, Cold War and Mughal courts from a Class 12 textbook, industrial revolution from a Class 11 textbook and some Dalit writers from a Class 7 textbook as part of a new rationalised syllabi for the current academic session.

The curriculum for Classes 6 to 12 was rationalised to “reduce the content load” on students in light of the Covid-19 pandemic. There was no selective omission of topics, said a senior NCERT official, requesting anonymity.

The NCERT started the rationalisation process for 2022-23 academic session last December and the same in now completed.

Curriculum documents showed that in the Class 12 Political Science textbook, pages 187-189 that were on the topic “Gujarat Riots” will be excluded from Chapter Nine titled “Recent Developments in Indian Politics” for this year.

An online version of the book on the NCERT website showed the pages mentioning the 2002 riots, the National Human Rights Commission report on the violence, and a quote from then PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee on “raj dharma”.

Other topics removed from Class 12 syllabus are full chapters on Mughal Courts in History, a poem on ‘The Dalit Movement’ and a chapter on the Cold War from the political science textbook. In the Class 11 history textbook, chapters titled “Central Islamic lands” and the Industrial Revolution were also dropped for this year, the documents showed.

In the social science textbook of Classes 7 and 8, references to Dalit writer Omprakash Valmiki were removed. In the Class 7 textbook titled “Our Pasts-2”, pages 48 and 49 were excluded. These pages mentioned “Mughal Emperors: major campaigns and events”, showed online versions of the books on the NCERT website.

NCERT director Dinesh Prasad Saklani refused to comment and said the process of rationalisation began before he took charge.

A senior official at the ministry of education, requesting anonymity, said, “The topics have been rationalised after due consideration by subject experts. They were either taught in earlier classes or will come in future classes. There has been no selective omission.”

According to a note released by NCERT, content was dropped in case of “overlapping” of similar content, included in other subject areas in the same class, or similar content included in the lower or higher class in same subject, or on the basis of “difficulty level” of the content, or if the content was “irrelevant” in the present context.

The topics may be taught in earlier or later classes, NCERT officials maintained.